Annapolis police raced March 24 to a report of a shooting on Greenbriar Lane.

They found a man shot in a parking lot that afternoon who managed to make his way to the 1700 block of Forest Drive before he was found by police.

To an outsider, the details make it seem an isolated incident.

Police investigating the scene found a vehicle parked nearby and ended up arresting three men and a teenager. There were no allegations of gang activity or links to any other recent crimes in the city.

But in court filings obtained by The Capital, prosecutors say the victim of the shooting was not the intended target and, in fact, was a bystander caught in the crossfire of a local gang rivalry.

In the documents filed in Anne Arundel County Circuit Court, prosecutors allege the shooting and other incidents tie about a dozen people to an Annapolis-based gang that sells heroin, possibly in several counties.

The unnamed gang allegedly spread its influence from the streets of Annapolis and Baltimore to inside the county courthouse, where a source regularly leaked information to its members.

As much of the public’s attention ahead of the general election has been focused on gang crime tied to MS-13, prosecutors and police showed in court records they were moving against another, homegrown gang in Annapolis.

Richard Mattingly, 32, of St. Mary’s County — Pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute narcotics. Originally faced four misdemeanor drug charges.

Timothy Aminzadeh, 43, of Arnold — Four misdemeanor drug charges.

Ronald McElwain, 33, of Parkville — Four misdemeanor drug charges.

Sterling Nugen, 36, of Calvert County — Entered an Alford plea to conspiracy to distribute narcotics. Originally faced four misdemeanor drug charges.

Carlos Wallace, 34, of Annapolis — Four misdemeanor drug charges. Has yet to be arrested.

Cornell Corey Contee, 29, of Centreville — Four weapons related to an alleged illegal weapons sale on May 22 picked up during the investigation.

Spokesmen for the Maryland State Police, Anne Arundel County police and the Anne Arundel County State’s Attorney’s Office all declined to comment on the case.

The majority of attorneys representing the defendants linked to the alleged gang either declined to comment or could not be reached for comment.

But James Zafiropulos, the attorney for Nugen, called the case “a whole kind of mess.”

Heroin sales

In fall 2015, Maryland State Police and Homeland Security Investigations began investigating allegations that Annapolis residents Traymont Wiley and Vincent Clark were leading a drug gang.

According to the court filings, Wiley and Clark had been selling drugs near the Newtowne 20 public housing complex “since at least 2011.”

Detectives had an informant purchase heroin from the organization’s dealers four times, the documents show, and all four tested positive for fentanyl, a more powerful synthetic opioid commonly cut with heroin.

But outside of those controlled buys, police had exhausted their investigatory efforts and applied for a wiretap on April 6, court documents state.

After being granted the wiretap by newly appointed Circuit Court Judge Mark Crooks, police said they were able to establish Wiley and Clark as the leaders of a heroin distribution circle that included other residents as well as users themselves.

On May 10, police got their biggest lead yet, as court documents state the wiretap revealed Wiley was planning to drive to Baltimore to buy more drugs to bring back to Annapolis.

After seeing Wiley in a blue Cadillac XTS parked in Newtowne — police wrote that financial documents state he’d only claimed about $1,878 of total income between the fourth quarter of 2016 and the first quarter of 2018 — officers then followed him to Windsor Mill in Baltimore County, the documents state.

It was there state police believe he picked up nearly 500 grams of a mix of heroin and fentanyl, meant to supply an entire ring of dealers throughout the area.

Police continued to watch him as he returned to Annapolis, but as an Anne Arundel County police officer tried to pull Wiley over, prosecutors wrote he fled and drove back to his residence on Warner Terrace South.

Documents state after he saw an officer also parked in his apartment building’s parking lot, he ran. While he wasn’t apprehended at the time, officers say they found “two large clear plastic bags” containing 491 grams of heroin and fentanyl.

It gave police the evidence they needed to move forward with harsher charges against Wiley and Clark. Investigators began linking drug sales down to the street level dealers they identified through wiretaps and further investigation.

State police would later announce the arrest of seven people, including Wiley and Clark, in June.

At the time, police wrote they’d dismantled a drug trafficking organization believed to be “responsible for the distribution of heroin and fentanyl throughout Maryland.” The department wrote they sold opioids in Anne Arundel, Prince George’s and Baltimore counties as well as Baltimore city.

But the court documents reveal the wiretap found their sphere of influence was wider than just street-level heroin dealers, that it might have been connected to at least two shootings: In one, a friend of the gang’s alleged leader was killed and in another four people apparently shot the wrong person in retaliation.

Annapolis shooting

According to prosecutors, the man injured March 24 was not the target.

A day earlier, Jamarri Boykin was convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting death of Shawn Crowdy in 2016, one of a record number of 10 murders that happened in the city that year.

According to prosecutors, Crowdy “was a close friend of Traymont Wiley.”

In addition, one of the men arrested in the shooting, Isiah Naylor, was “an associate of Wiley,” prosecutors wrote.

At the time of Boykin’s conviction, Annapolis police spokeswoman Sgt. Amy Miguez told The Capital that Annapolis police were “on alert” for any altercations between Boykin’s family and friends and Crowdy’s acquaintances.

“There seemed to be a lot of disputes related to the drug trade at the time,” she said.

So when Naylor was arrested in connection to a shooting the day after Boykin’s conviction, it led investigators to believe that the man shot March 24 wasn’t the intended target.

Rather, prosecutors wrote that it was, in fact, an acquaintance of Boykin’s that the four had meant to shoot.

Miguez said the “level of evidence” linking the shooting to another target did not rise to the level of filing additional charges against the four men. But she declined to say the man was not the intended target.

While police were preparing to target Wiley and his associates with related gang and drug distribution charges, the wiretap allegedly revealed that the gang had a woman inside law enforcement feeding them information about police tactics.

Chanel Holland

Earlier this month, Chanel Holland, a civilian employee at the Anne Arundel County Sheriff’s Office, pleaded guilty to a federal charge of obstructing an official proceeding. Prosecutors said she had fed Wiley and his associates information about sealed indictments and impending arrests.

According to her plea agreement filed in U.S. District Court in Baltimore, she provided Wiley with information about police tactics as early as April 12, informing them about a “new task force” that would be targeting the public housing complex where they allegedly sold drugs.

Prosecutors wrote that after Wiley dropped the heroin and fentanyl on May 10, Clark contacted Holland to see if Wiley would be charged.

“Communication between them continued on a regular basis — as Holland regularly checked databases that she could access and the public could not — to see whether Wiley was charged.”

Then, on June 11 at 9:05 a.m., prosecutors wrote Holland first saw the sealed indictment and pending arrest warrant for Wiley. “She promptly alerted Wiley and Clark.”

“This had a profound effect on the investigation, as it afforded the (drug trafficking organization) the opportunity to destroy and/or conceal evidence, and change its activities,” prosecutors wrote.

It’s unclear what evidence was destroyed as the related court documents only cite intercepted calls between Wiley and his alleged associates.

Bradley Warby, the attorney for Richard Mattingly, who pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to distribute narcotics after facing identical charges to Nugen, said Mattingly “deeply regrets his involvement in this case” and has entered treatment.

Nugen is charged with being one of a handful of street-level dealers who were working for Wiley and Clark in order to feed their own addictions, according to court documents.

Wiley, who faces 33 charges including two accusing him of being the kingpin of a drug trafficking organization, is scheduled to go to trial on Jan. 15.